I know people say TBC was the best expansion EVER, but nostalgia aside...
What could you do in TBC? Other else than Heroics/Raid/PvP?

And this is coming from someone who started playing in 2004.

In MoP you have endless stuff to do.
On top of the Heroics/Raids/PvP, there is:

Treasure hunting, archeology titles -I never found fun, I think it is shittily implemented and even more boring than fishing, which is saying something.
Pet battles (Which in itself is almost a game), - I have no interest in even attempting. My wind rider cub can follow me around and look cool, that's enough.
Farmville - While having a personal farm is an interesting idea, after Minecraft I don't think I could stand any non-freeform personal farms. Granted I haven't tried it out, but it's not often a developer constructs something to my liking when it comes to planting.
Achievement hunting (Achievements weren't out until late TBC) - Congratulations, useless achievements that are only good for shoving in other peoples noses. The only really good part to them is giving people a way to easily see how to get the titles and special mounts in game (which were already in game in BC.)
Mount farming -This was able to be done in BC, unless you mean achievements, then look at previous comment.
Scenarios - While this could have been done correctly, it is nowhere near what people were asking for. What they were asking for was constant, shifting, world events much like RIFT has. What they got were mini-dungeons with no effect on the world.
World PvP is back - World PvP was around in BC, it just fell off later in the expansion (until the Isle dailies at least), much like I am certain that World PvP will die back later on in this expansion as well. Unless there is clear incentive to do it, it won't stick around.

And I'm probably missing some.

Even though I had fun farming UBRS daily for 3+ months to get my Tier 0.5 Valor chest, I can say that I would had had a blast if MoP content was in there.

Basically you posted a bunch of half-ass positives and none of the negatives, such as psychological discouragement for the average gamer by putting in clearly visible caps to your gaming which feel bad not only when you don't reach them (because you feel there was more you could do and are falling behind), but when you do as well (because it means there is nothing else to do). It isn't MoP that is bad, it's WoW in general. They have made enough changes, that they can't really go back on without looking stupid, that have alienated quite a few players and made the game in general feel worse to play. The best thing they can do is take after RIOT and hire a few Psychologists and Sociologists to let them know whenever they are making a change that will be bad for the players mentality overall.

Let me ask you this. What evidence you would accept that their design philosophy is ass backwards? What could I present to you that would change your mind? Or bring you around to any remote criticism or second guess anything they've done so far? My suspicion is their isn't much and this discussion is ultimately futile.

Wouldn't the burden of proving your own opinion be on you and not us? But I am curious about what philosophies are backwards in their design.

The only metric of good/bad is if the game functions, is balanced, or is broken. The rest is just "I think this is fun" or "I don't think this is fun".

There's quite a bit of truth to this statement. The same things inevitably get discussed in writing workshops as well. Even other more broad questions, i.e. "What is art?" Well, it depends on who you ask.

Wouldn't the burden of proving your own opinion be on you and not us? But I am curious about what philosophies are backwards in their design.

Unfortunately it's not on me or you it's on Blizzard. Look the last time we were here it was because dungeons were hard. Remember how that worked out? So why should I accept that their design philosophy is correct this time around?

I know people say TBC was the best expansion EVER, but nostalgia aside...
What could you do in TBC? Other else than Heroics/Raid/PvP?

And this is coming from someone who started playing in 2004.

In MoP you have endless stuff to do.
On top of the Heroics/Raids/PvP, there is:

Treasure hunting, archeology titles - People actually do this? From my experience in a well populated guild, only a few members bothered doing them.
Pet battles (Which in itself is almost a game), - I agree it is a pretty good time sinking feature, but personally I got bored with it pretty fast untill they got to level 14
Farmville, - This isn't fun... its just an extra way to farm more mats
Achievement hunting (Achievements weren't out until late TBC) - It was out during WotLK and Cata, not really anything new
Mount farming, - Farming most mounts is by farming your way to exalted with all the factions, and its nothing new
Scenarios, - This feature is a dissapointment within the playerbase. It only consists of killing a lot of mobs with basically no tacs at all
World PvP is back - It was never gone

And I'm probably missing some.

Even though I had fun farming UBRS daily for 3+ months to get my Tier 0.5 Valor chest, I can say that I would had had a blast if MoP content was in there.

My personal contribution in red, and is ofcourse my opinion, and likely from a lot of other people of the playerbase. Don't bother bashing me back for the love of God

I would have to agree. I wasn't 100 percent sure at first but with the story elements they added in 5.1 and the supposed ulduar-like raid they will be adding in 5.2 I feel more and more like this will end up being the best expansion at least for me.

I will always have good memories of WOTLK because of the story and theme around Arthas and the Lich King but in terms of gameplay and sheer amount of things to do I like MOP more.

Unfortunately it's not on me or you it's on Blizzard. Look the last time we were here it was because dungeons were hard. Remember how that worked out? So why should I accept that their design philosophy is correct this time around?

In this instance I would say it's on you, since you're bringing up issues. What is your issue specifically? If we're talking about slow progression, what kind of progression? Gear, Content? In addition, in what environments? Dungeons, raids? I will add here that I'm not entirely sure what you're saying with a couple of these sentences.

I don't think you have to or have to not accept their design philosophies, but it helps to be as articulate as possible with your issues. I will agree with you on the issues with cheerleading (aka fanboys). They don't help anyone.

I'm sorry, MoP is better than Cata, by far, but it simply can't go aside TBC.

By the time of TBC you always had something to do. LvL up would tkae a LONG time... now it's a 5 days faceroll from lvl 1 to 90. Professions were about the same.. and os doing money overall. Trying to get the epic flyer or even the epic ground mount (for some) was a pain... and not everyone had an epic flyer even by the end of the X pack.

People who wanted to reroll would have to do it all over again, nto like now. You pay 10€ and you don't need to do anythign but keep on your way.

World exploration... it no longer exists.. they destroyed it and many people would spend a lot of time doing it.

Even gear.. i mean... there's people on T 14 already... lfr and lfd were not there, so you'd have to make your own groups, which generaly was fun.. not like now where you click a button, meet a bunch of players + bots and loot the thing.

There are jsut way too many things..... MoP is great.. but it simply can't be compared to TBC.

In this instance I would say it's on you, since you're bringing up issues. What is your issue specifically? If we're talking about slow progression, what kind of progression? Gear, Content? In addition, in what environments? Dungeons, raids? I will add here that I'm not entirely sure what you're saying with a couple of these sentences.

I don't think you have to or have to not accept their design philosophies, but it helps to be as articulate as possible with your issues. I will agree with you on the issues with cheerleading (aka fanboys). They don't help anyone.

Gear progression is to slow. The time=reward rate is out of whack. In general this is true of all aspects of the game. uhhh It's worse in some areas than in others but they've got a mentality that is reflected in the constant pandas line "SLOW DOWN" which I think is backwards and will bite them in the ass. Theirs a bunch of reasons for this though but the biggest offenders are delinking rep from dungeon grinding (which simple just made the time I spent in dungeons that much more rewarding) and making valor gear take a back seat this expansion. Lot's of other small little things to, like not being able to trade loot in lfr or lfr not having any kind of smart loot system. JP gear being virtually worthless and not giving you gear equivelant to what you got in the heroic dungeons. It just makes it hard to justify logging in because theirs no guarantee I'm gonna get anywhere in the game. The one guarantee is dailies oddly enough but they are so slow and I hate doing them and it's precisely the reason they feel forced. They are a guaranteed path to raid quality loot. Not reliant on rng but solely reliant on time invested.

Ultimately the game is and always has been a giant skinner box. The changes they've made to the skinner box suck. It just leads to frustration.

Mountfarming in tbc was for more intresting tehn it is now.. because back then you didnt already have 150+mounts. back then getting a new mount still meant something.
Achievement hunting is fun, but even if it wasnt added until wrath patch that didnt prevent you from farming to exalted with all of outlands factions.
Scenarios.. they plainly suck tbh sure its my own opinion but.. even if you cloud solo them they whould still be undertuned..
Farmville, it takes up what? 5min a day?
Pet battles.. never tried.. probobly never will..

AS for heroic dungeons they were far better in tbc, where the word heroic really ment that they were hard and not retard mode like they are now..

I'm sorry, MoP is better than Cata, by far, but it simply can't go aside TBC.

By the time of TBC you always had something to do. LvL up would tkae a LONG time... now it's a 5 days faceroll from lvl 1 to 90. Professions were about the same.. and os doing money overall. Trying to get the epic flyer or even the epic ground mount (for some) was a pain... and not everyone had an epic flyer even by the end of the X pack.

People who wanted to reroll would have to do it all over again, nto like now. You pay 10€ and you don't need to do anythign but keep on your way.

World exploration... it no longer exists.. they destroyed it and many people would spend a lot of time doing it.

Even gear.. i mean... there's people on T 14 already... lfr and lfd were not there, so you'd have to make your own groups, which generaly was fun.. not like now where you click a button, meet a bunch of players + bots and loot the thing.

There are jsut way too many things..... MoP is great.. but it simply can't be compared to TBC.

Any expansion can be compared to any other. I don't care one way or another that you or anyone else liked or didn't like TBC or X expansion. Some of the points you bring up are things that were once very, very grindy, and while some people might enjoy putting all that work into achieving those things in a game, that is not the majority of people.

World exploration certainly still exists. I enjoy accidentally finding all the little objects on Pandaria that can vendor for upwards of a hundred gold. The methods and locations may have changed, but just because it does not exist for you doesn't mean it doesn't exist for other players.

archeology titles Pretty much did my archeology in Cata so I don't know what is new but I can't see it being much as I got the new rares while leveling it up.Pet battles Not a fanFarmville So 10 minutes worth of activity every day? It was fun at first but becomes pretty pointless after a while.Achievement hunting Nothing new.Mount farming Nothing new (but finally allowing us to enter old raids without inviting someone is nice)Scenarios Fun to do once, after that they are an incerdible waste of time as they are mind boggling easy and not worth doing for the small reward they give.World PvP is back CRZ on PVE servers is horrible. I used to be able to kill several rares while leveling up and never had to wait for mobs to respawn, but now I didn't kill a single rare and had to wait several times because there were too many people on the quest. Can't say much about PVP servers as I don't find getting ganked by max levels fun anymore. Wow is the only MMO where the more people around, the less fun it is.And I'm probably missing some. You are.
Don't forget the insane amount of dailies that you are required to do if you want to purchase upgrades with VP (5.1 probably changed this a little), those sure are fun and exiting.
The fun rares in the world with neat mechanics that you can fight and you only get one chance because there's always someone floating above you waiting for you to die instead of grouping up with you. And of course they'll usually kill it because they saw you get killed by the one shot mechanic so they know what to look out for.
Having to respec before some quest turn ins so you can gear up a second spec gives you a nice break every now and then.
The huge amounts of JP spent on heirloom items because JP are completely useless means you can start leveling up some of those other classes you've been missing out on (changed in importance after 5.1 probably).

Quantity doesn't equal quality. I'll admit there is more to do now than there was in BC, but IMO the fun I was having in BC is what counts. Dailies were actually fun on my old PVP server, but that was when dailies were new and not the watered down time wasters they are now. The only thing keeping me playing now is LFR and leveling up a monk. Once I gear my monk up and do LFR a few times my subscription will be probably be cancelled. Outside of LFR the only thing I consider doing at max level would be dailies, but I can only take so much so my time is spent watching TV or playing another game until the queue pops. Change the few things that are just annoying and MoP would be great, as it is now it's a clear sign the game is moving away from what I consider enjoyable. Which could be fine with me, as I've played this game since early beta and only taking an extended break during Cata so it may be time to move on.

Gear progression is to slow. The time=reward rate is out of whack. In general this is true of all aspects of the game. uhhh It's worse in some areas than in others but they've got a mentality that is reflected in the constant pandas line "SLOW DOWN" which I think is backwards and will bite them in the ass. Theirs a bunch of reasons for this though but the biggest offenders are delinking rep from dungeon grinding (which simple just made the time I spent in dungeons that much more rewarding) and making valor gear take a back seat this expansion. Lot's of other small little things to, like not being able to trade loot in lfr or lfr not having any kind of smart loot system. It just makes it hard to justify logging in because theirs no guarantee I'm gonna get anywhere in the game. The one guarantee is dailies oddly enough but they are so slow and I hate doing them and it's precisely the reason they feel forced. They are a guaranteed path to raid quality loot. Not reliant on rng but solely reliant on time invested.

Ultimately the game is and always has been a giant skinner box. The changes they've made to the skinner box suck. It just leads to frustration.

A fair point. Personally I'm finding myself leaning in your direction with how some of the things progress. I don't particularly like doing dailies, and how far back some of the gear progression is locked in those things is definitely too much, although I'm fairly certain they've actually admitted that it was too slow recently (could be misremembering that though).

As for gear progression in raids, I think the tokens help that quite a bit, but they also create some new problems with being required to pound out a minimum of 45 dailies a week, even after you've maxed all your reputations. You have quite a few saved up from doing such a thing, but what happens later on down the road? Probably a new problem.

A fair point. Personally I'm finding myself leaning in your direction with how some of the things progress. I don't particularly like doing dailies, and how far back some of the gear progression is locked in those things is definitely too much, although I'm fairly certain they've actually admitted that it was too slow recently (could be misremembering that though).

As for gear progression in raids, I think the tokens help that quite a bit, but they also create some new problems with being required to pound out a minimum of 45 dailies a week, even after you've maxed all your reputations. You have quite a few saved up from doing such a thing, but what happens later on down the road? Probably a new problem.

I like the tokens but their just frustrating to. Constantly loosing rolls got on my fucking nerves. They just add another level of frustration to an experience that is already frustrating enough.

Valor point gain is slow. The valor cap is to little and the items and upgrades themselves cost to much. It just feels like nothing you do really rewards you any more and even the sure fire ways you could get rewards are so fucking gimped. I also don't think it's what players meant when they said they were bored and wanted something to do. wanting something to do doesn't mean that the game has to be less rewarding, it just means Blizzard needs to shape up and release end game tiers at a faster rate.

I've actually picked this expansion up, after completely quitting cata as soonas I hit 85, and I have to say it is so much better than cata so far for me. Whether it is better than WOTLK in terms of content still remains to be seen for me though. I will know more when I spend some more time playing it. I'm just glad to be tanking again with my warrior.

Of course, TBC will always be favourite expansion, it would take a lot to change that.